Autumn Nutting n.d.

William Hamilton made this watercolor drawing, Autumn Nutting, using watercolor and graphite. The application of color and the light brushstrokes create a sense of soft, pastoral elegance. Yet there is also a sense of work here, even if rendered in a highly idealized way. We see one figure, rendered in a classical style, reaching up to gather nuts from a tree. The others are presumably collecting the harvest, the fruit of manual labor. There's an interesting tension between the depiction of labor and the lightness of the medium. Watercolor has a delicacy and a sense of spontaneity, which in this case romanticizes the labor it depicts. The finished drawing is far removed from the actual exertion of harvesting. By considering the materials and the making of this image, we can see how it presents an idealized vision of rural life and work. This challenges our understanding of the art, prompting us to think about its social context.